The Martin Chronicles reporters will be out in full force as we enter the final full week of the election campaign in malfeasant Mayor Mike Martin's Villa Hills. We are expecting everything and anything to happen.
As most of the candidates-and our rapidly growing audience-now realize, we have eyes and ears everywhere. We will be able to report every move every candidate makes in the closing days of this important race. Most importantly, we will immediately correct every lie that's told. Those lies will most certainly come fast and furious from the mendacious Martin and others. Rewriting recent history is difficult, after all.
So, how is the election taking shape? For the purposes of full disclosure, we still aren't ready to begin predicting results. November 4's outcome is in the hands of Villa Hills voters. Yes, that's exactly how it should be.
But that raises some interesting questions. Are enough voters truly engaged? Have enough voters been watching the train wreck that has been Martin's past four, miserable years in the mayor's office? Have enough voters finally realized that it does matter who sits in the mayor's office and in the six city council seats? We will know the answers to these questions soon enough.
We do know that Martin's base of support is significantly smaller than it was four years ago. Since narrowly eking out victory in 2010, Martin is no longer seen as some "nice little fella" who a razor-thin majority of voters offered the chance to show what he could really do. Sure, he did show what he can really do. And what is that? To dishonestly orchestrate a corrupt and incompetent disaster.
But the 2014 mayor's race is quite different. Martin is facing three opponents, not one. Despite his well-documented record of abject failure and malfeasance, Martin needs far fewer votes to be reelected than he did to be elected in 2010.
Martin still has some base of support that he continues to dupe. He even has the "Martin Five" council candidates assisting his dishonest efforts to push the lie that Villa Hills is a city "moving forward". This despite convictions for official wrongdoing, a reprimand from the Villa Hills Ethics Board, four straight busted budgets, almost no street repair, a publicly abused local police department and multiple tax increases.
Remember, Martin doesn't need a majority of votes to win this time. He simply needs just one more vote than the three other candidates. Martin could conceivably win with just 26% of November 4's mayoral vote. While such a result isn't likely, it could happen.
One of the other three candidates has to break out of the pack. Brown, Callery and Menninger-Isenhour better be campaigning-and campaigning energetically-over these final days of the campaign. Villa Hills residents deserve a better city government than the one they have endured these past four years. Even if an as yet-undetermined number of those residents have yet to realize that obvious fact.
We'll examine the city council race next.
